Headlines from Harvard’s history

Headlines from Harvard’s history

Illustration of football players hanging their laundry out to dry

Illustration by Mark Steele

1932

Herbert Hoover carries the College (1,211 votes) in the Crimson’s presidential poll. The Alumni Bulletin attributes Norman Thomas’s strong showing (484 to FDR’s 620) to “an extraordinary increase of independent thinking among the students.”

Harvard football candidates are now required to change their socks and underwear at least three times a week. Long hair and moustaches, coincidentally, are becoming passé for members of the team.

1947

President James Bryant Conant criticizes the Soviet Union for its unwillingness to agree to international control of the atomic bomb, which he characterizes as “a sword of Damocles hanging over our industrialized civilization.”

1952

Harvard begins its largest financial aid program, allocating almost $1 million in scholarships, loans, and jobs for more than one third of the undergraduate student body.

1967

Institute of Politics scholars studying the draft system recommend higher pay for draftees and enlistees, abolition of special deferments for students and teachers, and a lottery to determine “who should serve when not all serve.”

1972

The new Harvard Center for Research in Children’s Television, with administrative support from the Children’s Television workshop, will explore the effects of visual media on children.

1987

“Ambitious plans are afoot to wire the University for the information age,” the editors report. The Corporation has been asked to authorize a new network that will introduce, among other things, “state-of-the-art telephone service.”

1997

In accordance with Harvard’s non-discrimination policy, the University’s Board of Ministry recommends that same-sex blessing or commitment ceremonies be permitted in Memorial Church.

Related topics

You might also like

Yesterday’s News

A co-ed experiment that changed dorm life forever

Highlights from Harvard’s Past

The rise of Cambridge cyclists, a lettuce boycott, and Julia Child’s cookbooks

Wadsworth House Nears 300

The building is a microcosm of Harvard’s history—and the history of the United States.

Most popular

Why Men Are Falling Behind in Education, Employment, and Health

Can new approaches to education address a growing gender gap?

The 1884 Cannibalism-at-Sea Case That Still Has Harvard Talking

The Queen v. Dudley and Stephens changed the course of legal history. Here’s why it’s been fodder for countless classroom debates.

Harvard art historian Jennifer Roberts teaches the value of immersive attention

Teaching students the value of deceleration and immersive attention

Explore More From Current Issue

Man in a suit holding a pen, smiling, seated at a desk with a soft background.

A Congenial Voice in Japanese-American Relations

Takashi Komatsu spent his life building bridges. 

Lawrence H. Summers, looking serious while speaking at a podium with a microphone.

Harvard in the News

Grade inflation, Epstein files fallout, University database breach 

A jubilant graduate shouts into a megaphone, surrounded by a cheering crowd.

For Campus Speech, Civility is a Cultural Practice

A former Harvard College dean reviews Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber’s book Terms of Respect.